In the past, managing a computer's operating system and its software applications required the system manager to use several distinct management application programs to manage the components of the system. Each management program is tailored specifically for the components that it manages, and the operating system software for these components is tailored for interacting with the management programs.
The components of a computer system which are managed using management application programs typically include a communications network interface, file management systems, and other types of input/output subsystems (e.g., workstation communication drivers, printer drivers, etc.). For each physical component of a computer system which is capable of being controlled by a system manager, the operating system will typically have a corresponding driver program which is also called "the component". For the purposes of describing the present invention, references to a "component" of a computer system are actually references to the operating system program which is in charge of handling a particular physical component or logical function of the computer system.
The problem that motivated development of the present invention is as follows. Management protocols are constantly changing as the computer industry matures and various industry organizations publish new standards for such operations as network management. Furthermore, for some management tasks there are two or more standard protocols that the computer needs to be able to work with. As a result, some components of the computer's operating system need to be compatible with several different management protocols, and as a result have complicated interfaces. Furthermore, every time a new protocol is implemented, the system manager not only has to develop a new management protocol program, he also has to modify the corresponding component or components so that they will work with the new protocol program. This is very inconvenient and expensive.
A specific example of a problem area associated with having multiple management protocols for a single component concerns network management protocols for the Internet network. The Internet network currently has a management protocol called Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). This management protocol is intended to be a short term solution. The long term solution is called Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP), but work on implementing CMIP is not yet complete. This presents the problem that the network handling component of a computer needs to be able to work with two management protocols during the transition from SNMP to CMIP.
To further complicate managing a network, multiple networks may exist on a single computer system. For example, a system may be coupled to both the Internet network and a proprietary network. Such a computer system would require yet another management application to manage the proprietary network. This illustrates the difficulty for the system manager: he/she must learn many management applications in order to utilize all the required management protocols.
The present invention provides an interface program or module, herein called the "common agent" module which handles multiple management protocols and programs for managing the components of a computer operating system. The common agent module is a single interface to the management of these components. Therefore a management program which conforms to this interface can interact with components of the system by translating its protocol-specific request to the format required by the common agent call interface. The common agent module also simplifies the development of operating system components by requiring only one management interface. The Protocol Engine receives a procedure call from the management program, which specifies a protocol-specific management operation that is to be performed, and translates it into a protocol non-specific call to the common agent interface. Therefore, the component need not have distinct software for interacting with each distinct management protocol.